Tag: far right
Alex Jones

Alex Jones Says He Is 'Gobsmacked' By Trump's Epstein Coverup

Alex Jones, a far-right conspiracy theorist and superfan of President Donald Trump, is in a state of crisis and confusion over his idol’s ongoing cover-up of information on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump promised that he would expose the inner workings of Epstein’s alleged operation in a second term. Instead, the Trump administration has refused to release much of the government’s information on Epstein, including a rumored client list, and Trump has berated his followers for having an interest in the story. The about-face has been annoying Trump’s backers in the MAGA movement for months.

On Wednesday, Trump told reporters that concerns about the Epstein story were “total bullshit,” and lied that the controversy was the creation of the Democratic Party.

That news led Jones to lament in a social media post, writing, “Trump‘s disastrous handling of the Epstein firestorm last month was starting to die down and now he has let the corporate media bait him into re-launching a new Streisand effect.”

Jones’ state of crisis worsened in a video posted on Thursday, showing him visibly confused as he ranted at length and tried to rationalize Trump’s obfuscation.

“This is just crazy,” Jones said. He insisted that despite his mishandling of the issue, “Trump is not stupid,” but he also expressed concern that Trump is “caught off guard with a new issue.”

“I don’t know what to say at this point. I am actually in a conundrum. I’m god-smacked,” he added.

Despite Jones’ conspiracies about 9/11 and the Sandy Hook school shooting, he attained mainstream conservative acceptance around the time of Trump’s first presidential campaign, when Trump sat for an interview with him. Ever since then, Jones has been a Trump cheerleader.

However, the Epstein issue seems to be causing Jones to rethink his devotion.

In July, Jones accused Trump of acting cultish about the topic, after Trump complained about being asked about his former friend Epstein. Jones also claimed that month that MAGA influencers were being frozen out from White House access for expressing dissent over Epstein.

Trump’s actions around Epstein are putting his most vocal backers out on a limb. They have carried a lot of water for Trump over the years, excusing his bigotry and racism while amplifying his conspiratorial allegations—only to see him in full retreat over one of the movement’s central narratives.

A possible reason for Trump’s stonewalling is that the government’s documents on Epstein’s crimes might implicate Trump, if not in a crime, then at least in misconduct. However, it is currently unclear whether this is true—the information is being hidden from the public, after all—but The Wall Street Journal has reported that Trump was told his name appears numerous times in the government’s Epstein files.

For Trump to be on the supposed client list that MAGA supporters see as a Rosetta Stone to so many of their conspiracies would be devastating. They surely cannot handle that possibility, so they, like Jones, are forced into abject confusion by Trump’s ongoing cover-up.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Jeanine Pirro

'Unfit And Unqualified': GOP Senate Confirms Jeanine Pirro As US Attorney

The far-right former Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Saturday night in a strictly party-line vote to become the next U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, a position progressive critics and Democratic opponents warn she is deeply unqualified to hold.

Pirro, who has been serving as the acting U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. since May, has a long history of spewing far-right conspiracy theories on air and throwing facts to the wind when it comes to lining up behind President Donald Trump. Pirro was a prominent figure when Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for defamation over the outlet's coverage of the 2020 election and she was a vocal proponent of Trump's "Big Lie" that the voting was rigged against him.

Christina Harvey, executive director of the pro-democracy group Stand Up America, condemned Pirro's confirmation.

"Republicans have handed the keys to our nation's capital to a Trump loyalist with zero credibility and a track record of unhinged extremism," warned Harvey. "Keanine Pirro isn't a serious prosecutor—she's a partisan attack dog who's made a name for herself by promoting conspiracy theories and threatening to criminally investigate January 6 prosecutors in the office she was just confirmed to oversee. A Fox News producer once called her a 'reckless maniac.'"

"By confirming Pirro," added Harvey, "Senate Republicans made one thing clear: they care more about pleasing Donald Trump than honoring their constitutional duty to advise and consent on presidential nominations. Qualifications, independence, integrity—none of it matters. Just blind loyalty."

The vote in the Senate was 50-45, with every Republican voting for Pirro and every member of the Democratic caucus voting against. Five senators did not cast a vote.

Congressional Democrats voiced their contempt for Pirro both leading up to the vote and following it.

"Pirro should never be a permanent U.S. Attorney," declared Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, just after the vote was finalized. "She endorsed the firing of January 6 prosecutors. She recklessly spread the Big Lie to the point her *own producers* had to tell her to cool it. Ultimately, she’s a rubber stamp for Donald Trump."

Ahead of the vote, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) explained his opposition to her confirmation, saying Pirro was "deeply unfit and unqualified" and describing her as "a loyal acolyte and sycophant" of Trump.

"She is not objective, she is not independent," said Blumenthal. "Instead she has made her mark spreading damaging, offensive conspiracy theories."

Last week, Rep. Jeremy Raskin (D-MD), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Senate leadership urging against Pirro's confirmation, calling her a threat to the government's independent judiciary and unfit to run the U.S. Attorney's office in D.C., the largest of its kind in the nation.

"Over the past decade, Ms. Pirro has consistently demonstrated that her loyalty lies with Donald Trump the person, not with the Constitution or the rule of law," said Raskin in a letter addressed to Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

"Her blind loyalty to Donald Trump at the exclusion of other principles, her embarrassing support of the 'big lie' that the 2020 election was rigged in the face of all evidence to the contrary and 60 federal and state court decisions rejecting such claims, her unswerving defense of convicted January 6th rioters, and her incendiary rhetoric that urges President Trump to seek retribution against his alleged enemies," continued Raskin, "all make it clear that she lacks the intellectual honesty, personal principles, temperament, integrity, and fundamental constitutional fidelity required to lead this important office."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Susan Crawford

Wisconsin Supreme Court Reminds Us Why Judicial Elections Are Vital

As abortion-rights wins feel few and far between, it’s great to see the Wisconsin Supreme Court strike down the state’s 176-year-old abortion ban. Getting there has been a long process, one that required Wisconsin Democrats to make a significant, long-range commitment to winning judicial races. Oh, and also to beat back the deep pockets of the far-right billionaire Elon Musk.

In 1973, after the Supreme Court established a constitutional right to abortion, many states, including Wisconsin, kept their old abortion bans on the books. Known as “trigger laws,” they lived on like a zombie, ready to shamble back to life if Roe v. Wade was reversed. After Dobbs v. Jackson was decided in June 2022, Wisconsin’s ancient ban was technically back in effect—but only technically since the state’s Democratic leadership promised not to enforce the law. They argued that newer, more lenient abortion laws superseded it.

Enter the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The fight over whether the 1849 ban would hold was a proxy fight for abortion access more broadly—and a fight for abortion access more broadly was always going to end up on the doorstep of a state court that had flipped control over the previous several years.

Wednesday’s 4-3 decision strikes down the ban and declares abortion legal in the state. This victory for reproductive care was possible only because of the multiyear efforts that Wisconsin Democrats and abortion activists put in. In 2023, Janet Protasiewicz trounced Daniel Kelly, a former justice on the court, to win a seat on the state Supreme Court. If you want to know what Kelly is like, just know that he went on to become a “Stop the Steal” lawyer.

Fast-forward to 2025, when liberal justice Ann Walsh Bradley announced she would not be running for reelection, and whoever won her seat would determine the balance of the court, given its 4-3 liberal majority. This made it one of the most important judicial races in the country, and in strolled Musk, thinking he could buy the race.

That very much did not work. Liberal candidate Susan Crawford beat the conservative candidate, Brad Schimel, by 10 percentage points, showing that heart and grit and organizing could beat back Musk’s torrent of cash. Better still, Crawford had previously represented Planned Parenthood in an abortion-related case, so to the right wing, she was basically Satan.

For decades, state judicial races were a pretty sleepy affair. But after the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in 2009, three justices were ousted by a very well-funded, well-organized recall effort. Since then, state judicial races have gotten much more expensive and much more partisan. The Crawford-Schimel race was the most expensive state judicial race ever, with spending hitting $100 million.

It’s not great that state courts have become an expensive partisan battleground, but paying attention to them and committing to election support is more important than ever. Control of a state’s highest court can make the difference on LGBTQ+ issues, abortion access, election redistricting, and so on.

As Trump judges have ravaged the federal courts, and as the U.S. Supreme Court has continued to take a hacksaw to the Constitution, state courts remain a place where—sometimes—justice can still be served.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Leonard Leo

Right-Wing Group Linked To Koch And Leo Sues Trump Over Tariffs

President Donald Trump's tariff announcement last week has not only rattled financial markets, but even a group of far-right billionaires who have a history of supporting Republican causes.

The Guardian reported that a far-right group funded by multibillionaire Charles Koch and the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo is now suing to stop Trump's new trade duties on China from taking effect. The New Civil Liberties Alliance argued that Trump's invocation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to justify his unilateral imposition of new tariffs is illegal, and that the courts should intervene based on precedent that requires Congress weigh in on certain policy-related matters.

“This statute authorizes specific emergency actions like imposing sanctions or freezing assets to protect the United States from foreign threats,” the organization stated. “It does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. In its nearly 50-year history, no other president – including President Trump in his first term – has ever tried to use the IEEPA to impose tariffs.”

"His attempt to use the IEEPA this way not only violates the law as written, but it also invites application of the supreme court’s major questions doctrine, which tells courts not to discern policies of ‘vast economic and political significance’ in a law without explicit congressional authorization," the statement continued.

Mark Chenoweth, who is president of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, said that by filing the lawsuit in a Pensacola, Florida court, the judge would have to abide by the aforementioned precedent, or else it would ultimately "transfer core legislative power." And Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) — who recently voted with Democrats to limit Trump's tariff powers on Canada — opined that his colleagues in the Senate Republican Conference are also likely very uneasy about the president's latest new import taxes,

“They all see the stock market, and they’re all worried about it,” Paul said. “But they are putting on a stiff upper lip to try to act as if nothing’s happening and hoping it goes away.”

The lawsuit also signals an escalation from the various arms of the Koch political machine. His Americans for Prosperity organization threw its weight behind former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, only for her to bow out and eventually endorse Trump after Trump won the Super Tuesday primaries.

After this article appeared, a spokesperson for Stand Together contacted The National Memo with the following statement: "Stand Together, a nonprofit funded in part by Charles Koch that has supported NCLA is not involved in this case."


Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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